Clubs angry over expansion plans

AUSTRALIAN soccer’s civil war has flared up yet again — A-League clubs have lashed out at Football Federation Australia for releasing expansion plans they say they weren’t consulted about.

FFA yesterday called for formal expressions of interest from bidders, who have been asked to provide information about their strategy for a new club and to prove their financial bona fides.

By the end of October the governing body aims to announce which two new clubs — expected to be from Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane — will be granted entry to the league for the 2019-20 season. But in finally starting the formal expansion process, FFA again has drawn the ire of the existing clubs and their representative, former Adelaide United chairman Greg Griffin, chairman of the Australian Professional Football Clubs Association.

Griffin wrote to FFA chief executive David Gallop to warn the expansion plans were in “complete conflict” with the governance reform process being steered by FIFA.

“[This] process has been undertaken without any formal consultation,” he wrote.

“Should you proceed to make the announcements that you seemingly intend to make soon, APFCA puts you on notice that it does not accept the legitimacy of the process, whatever that may have been, adopted by FFA Administration and FFA Board to expand the A-League competition.

“Unless and until the corporate governance issues have been resolved, any decision made by the FFA Board as to expansion lacks all legitimacy and will not be accepted by APFCA.”

FFA’s announcement did indicate that existing clubs, state federations and the players’ union would be given the chance to submit their views on expansion.

But Griffin said that was contrary to the agreement made by stakeholders last month to wait for news from FIFA as to how the “Congress Working Review Group” would be structured.

“We have done a lot of work on the fundamentals behind successful expansion of the ALeague and we are confident that we will receive some high quality bids as part of this process,” Gallop said.

FFA intends to select a shortlist of bidders and request from them a fully fledged proposal by the end of August.